Lord of Misrule and City of Thieves

The 2010 National Book Award winners were announced last week. A total of 1,115 books were submitted by publishers: 302 fiction, 435 nonfiction, 148 poetry, and 230 “young people’s literature”. You can listen to the whole awards ceremony and read interviews with all the author finalists at the NBA Web site. Don’t miss the hilarious Totally Hip Book Reviewer video on the NBA fiction finalists by Washington Post critic Ron Charles.

The National Book Award winner for fiction is Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon, a very late release about a race horse, that still isn’t widely available. While you’re waiting for it, you may want to brush up on your thoroughbred horse knowledge with a copy of Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand, who has just topped herself with another bestselling book, Unbroken: A World War II Airman’s Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, which is also so new it’s hard to get from the library yet.

For a great fictional World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption, pick up David Benioff’s novel City of Thieves. Set during the siege of Leningrad, City of Thieves is an action-packed story of a crazy quest for a dozen eggs in a country where chickens are such a forgotten memory that the meat in those pale-looking meat patties sold on the black market is quite possibly human flesh. The novel’s dark humor about average human beings facing starvation, war, and death has something in common with The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak and the movie La Vita e Bella (Life Is Beautiful), but it outdoes both of these in the amount of creative obscenity- and profanity-laced Russian-style cursing from both soldiers and civilians.
Check availability of City of Thieves by David Benioff in the Old Colony Library Network catalog.
Check availability of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand in the Old Colony Library Network catalog.
Check availability of Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand in the Old Colony Library Network catalog.